Early career

The son of a Cologne civil servant, Adenauer grew up in a Roman Catholic family of simple means in which frugality, fulfillment of duty, and religious dedication were stressed. He studied law and political science at universities in Freiburg, Munich, and Bonn. In 1906 he was elected to the Cologne city council and in 1917, during World War I, was chosen Oberbürgermeister, or lord mayor, of the city. Retaining that office until 1933, Adenauer created new port facilities, a greenbelt, sports grounds, and exhibition sites and in 1919 sponsored the refounding of the University of Cologne.

In 1918 Adenauer had hoped at first that the Rhineland might become one of the member states of Germany’s new Weimar Republic, but, when the British finally evacuated Cologne in 1926, the city and its surrounding district remained part of the Prussian Rhine province. Adenauer, who had been a member of the Prussian Herrenhaus (upper chamber of parliament) before its abolition in 1918, was a member of the Staatsrat (the central organ representing the diets of the Prussian provinces) from 1920 and became its speaker in 1928. Politically, he belonged to the Centre Party, which reflected Catholic principles.

When the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Adenauer lost all his offices and posts. After intermittent persecution, he was sent to a concentration camp in 1944. At the end of World War II, the U.S. military authorities restored him as mayor of Cologne, but the British, who assumed control of the city in June 1945, removed him from office in October. Rather than withdrawing from public life, Adenauer was reinvigorated by his fall from power.

Chancellor

Even before the end of the war, a new political party was being formed—the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU)—in which Roman Catholics and Protestants buried their long-standing differences to present a common front against Nazism and to promote Christian principles in government. Adenauer played an important role in the formation of this new party, and in 1946 he became its chairman in the British zone of occupation. Subsequently the CDU expanded into the four zones of the Allied occupation. As the Soviet Union began to increasingly obstruct the Allied Control Council, the Western Allies decided to give their three occupation zones a federal-state organization. Adenauer became president of the Parliamentary Council, which produced a provisional constitution for the intended German Federal Republic. In 1949 Adenauer became chairman of the CDU for the whole of West Germany, and, in the first general elections under the new regime, his party and its regular ally, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), together won 139 of the 402 seats in the Bundestag, the lower house of the federal parliament. He managed to form a coalition government, but it was by a majority of only one vote that the Bundestag confirmed his appointment as chancellor on September 15, 1949.

Learn how Konrad Adenauer worked to integrate West Germany into the Western community after World …

As chancellor, Adenauer was opposed to socialist ideas and rejected the notion of an egalitarian mass society. His leading political theme was individualism under the rule of law. He was imbued with the conviction that the state must guarantee its citizens optimal room for independent intellectual and economic development, as well as absolute protection under the law. The political platform of the CDU, however, went beyond Adenauer’s ideas, advocating some programs that were socialist in nature. Adenauer reacted pragmatically, expressing a willingness to compromise on domestic programs with which he philosophically disagreed so that he could promote the unity of the country and give West Germany an important place in the European community.

The focus of his interest throughout his career lay in foreign affairs. He viewed the expansion of communist rule into the heart of Europe as a direct threat to the West and its values. He had no faith in the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the communist world and felt the need for tough opposition to any aggressive military threats from the Soviet Union and its allies. He considered irreconcilable the differences between individualistic rule of law and totalitarian dictatorship and between humanistic Christian teachings and communist social regimentation. He therefore became a strong advocate of the Cold War politics of containment. As a result, he energetically supported German contributions to NATO and its nuclear arsenal, though he would have preferred the development of a European defense community. He worked tirelessly for the reconciliation of Germany with its neighbours, especially France.

There were numerous important events in West German history during Adenauer’s term. In 1950 West Germany gained associate membership in the Council of Europe. In 1951 the country established a foreign office (with Adenauer himself as minister of foreign affairs until 1955), achieved full membership in the Council of Europe, and became a founding member of the European Coal and Steel Community. In 1952 Germany participated in the formation of the European Defense Community (EDC). In 1954–55, after the collapse of the EDC, West Germany was recognized as a sovereign state and was admitted into NATO. And in 1957–58 Germany became a founding member of the European Economic Community (EEC; later succeeded by the European Union).

British Prime Minister Anthony Eden commenting on the strong ties between western Europe and West …

Stock footage courtesy The WPA Film Library

West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer negotiating the release of 10,000 German POWs from the …

Meanwhile, Adenauer’s rising prestige was reflected in the elections of 1953 and 1957; in both the CDU-CSU coalition won a strikingly increased majority in the Bundestag, ensuring that Adenauer was unchallenged for the chancellorship. However, the terms under which he secured West Germany’s membership in the EEC were criticized by the CDU’s Ludwig Erhard, who, as minister of economic affairs from 1949, was given the main credit for the “miracle” of the West German economic recovery. Erhard became vice-chancellor in 1957, but antagonism between him and Adenauer grew more pronounced, and in 1959 Adenauer tried to exclude him from eventual succession to the chancellorship.

In the elections of 1961 the CDU-CSU lost a number of seats in the Bundestag. To form the next government, Adenauer brought the Free Democratic Party (FDP) back into coalition with his own party (as in 1949 and 1953 but not 1957). The FDP, however, made Adenauer promise to relinquish the chancellorship before the end of the parliamentary term. In 1963, after achieving his long-sought treaty of cooperation with France and its leader, Charles de Gaulle, Adenauer accordingly resigned and was succeeded by Erhard. Adenauer remained chairman of the CDU until March 1966.

Konrad Adenauer, 1966.

Horst Tappe/EB Inc.

During Adenauer’s chancellorship his opponents had demanded that Germany be neutralized and placed in a position of nonalignment between the Eastern and Western blocs. But Adenauer and his party won all major elections because they declared that the risks to security in such a policy would be intolerable. To the end of his life, Adenauer was reproached, unfairly, for not having seriously worked for the reunification of Germany, but he believed that such was the duty of the powers that had partitioned Germany rather than of the West German government.

Adenauer enjoyed congenial relations with important European and American statesmen, particularly de Gaulle and U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Adenauer’s use of language served him in his political goals, for it was sharpened to be intelligible and convincing to the common man and its simplicity emphasized his authority. In his personal life Adenauer was unpretentious and extremely disciplined. He was married twice and was twice widowed. Attesting to his political importance, the leaders of the United States and France, as well as many other heads of state, including David Ben-Gurion of Israel, attended his funeral in 1967.

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(1876-1967). After World War II Germany lay in ruins. To Konrad Adenauer belongs much of the credit for raising West Germany to a position of economic prosperity and making it a respected free-world ally.